The End of It
by GreenCookie
Summary: A one shot MG fic, where an F4 member ceases to exist. A bit melancholy. Please R&R.


Disclaimer: This is purely a fan fiction. Anything appearing here that has previously appeared in any other form does not belong to me.

AN: This is a one shot MG fic. A bit melancholy but I hope you all like it. Please R&R.

**The End of It**

The expensive building stood lonely on the grounds of Ying De, its large glass windows and aluminum-edged double doors shut, indicating to the general passerby they would enter unwelcomed. The inside was just as void of any recent human habitation, the sprawling basketball court empty and unused…except in one high corner of the stands where a lone person sat.

He sat, knees apart, body forward, brows furrowed; the perfect depiction of concentration as he read the letter in his hands. His eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened as he reached the end of the letter; then, in one sudden motion, his fist clenched, crumpling the few sheets and he leapt to his feet in a barely controlled ferocity and threw the letter from him as hard and as fast as his strength would permit. It sailed through the air, landing almost flippantly on the court, and bounced lightly off the toe of a pair of well polished leather Armani's.

The owner of the shoes glanced down at the scrunched ball of paper and then up at the other unsmilingly. "Still angry, Ah Si?"

"What do you think?" Ah Si growled in replied, breath hard as he dropped back into his seat with a glare at the visitor from the blue. In an effort of frustration, he ran rough hands over a chiseled face and an unbrushed mass of hair. "He should have told us, Xi Men. I don't care what everyone says or what excuses he makes, he should have told us, the bastard!"

_I'm sorry. I know you're angry that I didn't tell any of you. But, tell me honestly, Ah Si, would you guys have treated me differently if you had known? Think about it through, for once, and then we both know what the answer would have been. I made the decision; there's nothing you can do. Stop being angry, pineapple head._

Xi Men stood for a moment, his dark eyes observing his friend impassively. Then raising the expensively shod foot, he began to climb the stairs. "Mei Zuo had always done things his way. Why should he have left us in any other way?" his voice slow, but careful in the silence of the stadium.

"His life is one thing, okay? His death is a totally different thing. You know that Xi Men, so don't try and act like you actually understand cause I know you damn well don't either." Xi Men's next step up was hesitant; he knew Ah Si was right. Every day of the last week had been nothing less than a raging battle inside as he attempted a reconciliation with Mei Zuo's inexplicable reasons. Ah Si continued his angry contemplation: "He had known for two years, Xi Men, two years! I can't believe we didn't realize, I can't believe we never noticed!"

_I first found out two years ago, at home. There had been a sharp pain in my chest, so painful I believe I actually stopped breathing for a few seconds. My head was throbbing and I couldn't see; I was in less of a condition than an impeded fool. You wouldn't think it, Xi Men, but for the first time in my spoilt, pampered, rich-kid's life, I was truly scared. The doctors later told me it was because the vessels in my body had all contracted momentarily, cutting off circulation to my heart and my brain; but they had never seen anything like it before. My first reaction was, so what, I'm only going to live for five more years? But as luck would have it, the doctors predicted I would only last two or three more years if my body decided to adopt that nasty little habit. And it did. Half the times I had run out on you guys because 'a girl had called' was really because I had learnt to recognize the rapid heartbeat before the vessel contraction._

Xi Men sat beside his friend, tossing his lengthy hair over his shoulder and assuming Ah Si's bent frame. "He hid it so well," he mused. "Now that I come to think about it, we saw him even less than Lei who was always at his fifteen hour sleep. Guess those 'girls' must have kept him busy, huh."

"He should have told us," Ah Si repeated sullenly. "I could have helped, I could have looked for doctors or experts or surgeons or –" Xi Men laughed, a short, crude bark; the first of the kind in many days.

"Ah Si, Mei Zuo may not have been as rich at the Dao Ming family but he was certainly rich enough to access the same resources as you," he reminded Ah Si. "What could you do that he couldn't?" There was no reply; Dao Ming Si struggled with the internal realization that his money could not have brought an answer this time round; Xi Men too, had recognized the meaning of his words, and the two sat in silence, deep in individual but similar thoughts.

_Lei, remember the basketball court at Ying De? How we used to play there, just the four of us? F4. There's so much meaning incorporated within that one letter and that one number. In the beginning, it was only Ah Si, Xi Men, you and me. Then as we grew, it became 'the F4', the group who could do anything supposedly because we had all the money and all the power. But I proved them wrong…jurisdiction of life was beyond our reach. This year, F4 will lose a figure as I sit here in expectation of my future. Soon it'll be just Ah Si, Xi Men, you and a ghost of me. I'm rambling on, aren't I? But could you do me a favor, Lei? Whenever you get a chance, go back to Ying De and shoot a ball in the old hoop for me. Could you, Lei?_

Xi Men ducked, startled, as a basketball sliced through the air where his head had been but a second ago. The ball bounced fiercely off the back wall and rolled to a silence under a bench. The two friends found their assailant in a familiar face, standing alone in the middle of the court, his usually sleepy face stoned with emotion.

"Get the ball," Lei said, his voice hard. "Let's play."

The game they played was hard and furious: each man for himself, whoever had the ball regarded the others as an opponent, even if they had been on the same side but a moment ago. The game they played was a silent one: not a sound came from the three save for heavy breathing and the squeak of Xi Men's Armani's on the polished floor. The game they played lasted a short while: it ended as Ah Si threw the ball to the left as he knew Mei Zuo would be there to catch it, ready to back him up. The game they played was without Mei Zuo; and the ball rolled away, tired of a hopeless match.

Ah Si watched it go, and then with an agonized yell, he kicked a furious dent into the floor. Eyes blazing, he stormed around the stadium in an attempt to destroy everything he possibly could. And finally, when the basketball nets laid in shreds on the floor, and half the windows were nothing but shards of glass, and when the benches had been scarred beyond repair and the court floor would need re-boarding, then did he stop, a defeated look upon his face. He could destroy the world but it would not help the con fusion buried within him.

"What are we supposed to do now, Xi Men? Lei?" he asked, his eyes desperate. "F4 can never be F4 without Mei Zuo. We wouldn't even be F3! We'll just be Ah Si, Xi Men and Lei. We can never be F4 again."

"He's right," Xi Men said hollowly, staring resolutely away from his friends. "Even when you lost your memory in Barcelona, we still had you, Ah Si. You were still there, weren't you? You didn't remember us, you didn't want to remember us, but you were still there, weren't you? We could have still been F4 if we tried hard enough. And in the end, you came back. We were F4 again, we were whole." Lei's face had been wiped of emotions; he knew what was coming. "But Mei Zuo's gone and he won't be back, and I'm afraid…" Xi Men faltered. "I'm afraid that…"

"You're afraid to forget," Lei interrupted, his voice dull. "You're afraid you won't remember the way he looks, or the way he speaks, or the good times you guys had together. You're afraid you'll forget how good a friend he was, afraid you'll forget how important he was in your life…"

"Afraid that you'll forget how with a smile he could throw away your problems," another voice continued, soft but prominent. Their newest member was a tall, lithe woman, dressed in soft skirts, her long brown hair falling in curls down her back, her eyes underlined with old tears. She made her way towards them. "You're afraid that over time, his eyes will fade away from your mind, becoming nothing more than a memory. You hurt but you don't want it to stop, lest you might forget. When he broke our engagement, I was afraid too…but it will never happen. I promise you."

_Xiao Qiao. Where do I begin about her? From the beginning, I had known to get close to her was wrong. The other girls, they had known my love was no guarantee. I would be there one night perhaps and I might not return till the next week, or month or year. You know me, Xi Men, you know we're one of a kind…the love we gave to those girls was never false or wrong; it was just conditional if you will, as opposed to unconditional. That way I could love, but not so much that we would all hurt because of it. But Xiao Qiao…I ended it for her own sake and mine. She wouldn't hurt when I died and leaving this place wouldn't seem so bad._

"I always knew he had a reason," Xiao Qiao said, a tone barely above a whisper. "I knew he had a reason for leaving."

"No, you don't. You don't know anything do you?" Ah Si said bluntly, staring at her. The others turned to him, his apparent rudeness unsettling them. "You say we'll never forget him, but when he left you, he was still alive, wasn't he? Now he's really and truly gone, you don't know whether we will actually forget him or not. A person is easy to remember when they're alive, even if they're not by your side. But when they're dead, you can't just call them up, you know? Do you get me? Do you understand at all?" His rough voice peaked, reaching throbbing tension, as the hurt returned in a new and greater wave. "You say you loved him, but you only had him for a year alright!"

"Ah Si," Xi Men warned, watching the victim's eyes gather with tears that refused to flow as she stared defiantly back at the taller boy. Ah Si ignored him and continued his tirade:

"We've been friends for life! Friends since before we were even born cause our parents were friends!" he yelled, his face turning red with breathing effort. There had never been such a meaning as control or restraint for the war-fiendish leader, but this time, he couldn't move. The range of emotions he had felt since his best friend had departed had anchored him to the ground as he unleashed them onto Mei Zuo's given heart. "Don't give me all this crap about remembering him or anything, cause you don't know a thing! You wait till you lose someone you've had all your life and wait till you feel this sort of helplessness then you can talk to me about remembering alright! You're nothing but a stupid little girl and you don't know what love reall –"

He never managed to finish his sentence as Lei's clenched fist drove into his left cheek and he fell backwards onto the wooden floor, the hard coldness of it washing him with the realization that wild fury had allowed from him words he would forever regret.

"Ah Si, you've said enough," Lei said, pointedly refusing to look in his friend's direction, but instead glancing at Xi Men.

The latter understood. He hooked a hand onto Ah Si's elbow, helping him unsteadily to his feet. They disappeared through the exit doors, one friend leaning upon the other, two people in the same state of mind, three as Lei made to leave too. But then he turned, shadowy eyes observing the escaped tear rolling down Xiao Qiao's cheek.

"Don't mind Ah Si," he said, voice deafeningly quiet within the stadium walls. "He can never really speak for Mei Zuo, he can't tell you the thoughts that ran through Mei Zuo's head or how Mei Zuo defined life or love. I can't either. Neither can Xi Men. The only person who can do that is Mei Zuo."

_There are so many people in this world, and I admit, between the four of us, we know quite a few of them and they know us. Some like we grew up with them, some as acquaintances, others as business partners, but mostly by reputation. I'm well aware of what society regards me as, and I suppose most of them would say I wasted my life. What with all the cars and the girls and the drinking and the partying. You know what? I don't think I agree really. Life's going to be over for me soon but I've achieved a fair bit in the time that I've had. No doubt I could have done more if I died at a hundred and two years of age, but you take what you can get you know. But I've lived and I've loved and I've lost. And that's just the end of it, Lei. That's just the end of me._

And Lei was gone, but even as he left, as he walked through the dark passageway that lead to the outside, an escaped tear of his own descended down the façade that was Hua Zhe Lei.


End file.
